As You Fail
by Dragon Empress
Summary: (For Akiko's Ficcy Challenge!) "You can't survive outside of here." -Sometimes, the people you hate most, are the ones you understand best.


ME: Blimey, I'm alive! Well…sort of anyway. Despite my GS muses seeming to up and leave for the Bahamas, I felt inclined to give Akiko's latest challenge ficcy a go.

DISCLAIMER: IF I HAD ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD, I MIGHT BE ABLE TO OWN GOLDEN SUN. OH, AND I'D ALSO OWN YOU…SO BE THANKFUL…

ME: Yup. This is a weird one, from a funny perspective. But I think you should blame Akiko for it, personally…it was her challenge!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_You are silent. _

It all came on so suddenly. One day you were young, brave, strong, and then…_so sudden. _A silence like your mother's grave on a Sunday. It filled you, killed you.

Although, you've not been home in such a long time, and it's getting harder and harder to visualise dear mother's grave. Cold stone, carved and ornate. Beautiful and sad.

_Rather like your mother, really._

She was silent, you remember. In that time before you left. _But not like this. _

Because this…this is different. It's terrible.

The leaves crunch beneath your feet, but you find yourself ignorant to the sound. The birds chirp, getting ready to fly away, _fly away somewhere better for while._ But you don't hear it.

It hits you like a mountain, crashing down on top of your head. Filling you, killing you.

_You can't hear anything. _

Not one single sound.

And, thinking back, it's obvious why.

_"Don't leave Lemuria…ever."_ The elders would whisper, in their frail, conspiring way. _"You can't survive outside of here."_

Oh, how right they were.

Because when you were young you hated them, but now in your age, you realise suddenly that you're beginning to understand them.

_Because you're so old, in the real world. _

And you're beginning to fail.

You're deaf. Tomorrow you might be blind too, but today you're _deaf._

And you fall to your knees, but the dusty _thud_ escapes you. Your hands scrape and scratch insanely at the cold, brown earth, but the sound of your bitten fingernails breaking disappears before it reaches you.

_You can smell the blood mixing with the dust, but it's not enough anymore._

You can feel the pounding of your panicked heart beneath your shirt, but there's not even a buzzing in your ears to acknowledge it.

There's just…nothing. So suddenly, there is nothing.

_Not even the voices of your friends, way down the hill, who call to you. _

They've been worried; you realise dimly, and wonder how long it's been since you moved from this spot. Certainly, the sun has vanished from the sky, but you can't tell that a storm's on its way.

The sound of thunder goes unnoticed.

But the hard slap on your shoulder doesn't. Strong hands: two different pairs, pulling you to your feet. Somebody has _your_ hands too, and in a daze still, you feel a healing power wash over you.

_But nothing can heal you now, not truly._

Concerned eyes stare at you, mouths move. They ask questions you don't fully understand anymore, because their lips move too fast, _"What happened to you?" _

They don't understand, of course. And maybe nothing will ever make them fully understand.

But as you stumble again under the weight of your shock, those strong hands catch you again, and someone puts your arm over their shoulder to stop you falling.

They carry you someplace warm and familiar, and tomorrow you'll realise that they all stay with you the whole night.

But for now you don't even have the strength to care anymore.

And as your eyelids slowly flutter shut, the words of the elders come back to you again, as they will for the rest of your life, _"You can't survive outside of here."_

Now, as you fail, you understand what they meant.

_And now, as you fail, you know that they were right. _

_-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

ME: So yeah, weird. (Coughs.) But it fit the challenge criteria, so yay for me!

So go on and review folks, or alternatively, head down to your local Dragon Empress' Recruiting Office and join up for my evil zombie army. See the world, eat some brains!

And review!


End file.
